Knuth, an environmental educator and former DFL legislator, spent her first months in the job interviewing people and conducting a survey, but had not delivered any finished work product before she resigned.

Mychal Vlatkovich, a spokesman for Mayor Jacob Frey, said they’ve begun looking for a replacement and hope to hire someone by the end of March who will focus on the mayor’s goals. He said the mayor’s office did not ask Knuth to step down, but declined to answer whether she was allowed to continue in the position and referred further questions to Knuth and former City Coordinator Spencer Cronk, who is now the city manager of Austin, Texas.

“The position is designed to reflect the priorities of the administration, and in this case we’re going to be focused more narrowly on expanding access to affordable housing, and the impact that would have on our other goals, including building an inclusive economy and strengthening police-community relations,” Vlatkovich said.

One possibility is “studying historical trends in the housing marketplace and making recommendations around where to direct funding that could spur economic development or help with goals around sustainability,” he said.

Each participating city addresses resilience in its own way under the program. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is using the grant to try to better handle rapid population growth. Mexico City has a detailed plan for water management.

Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde, the acting city coordinator who oversees the position in Minneapolis, said Knuth’s exit was arranged under Cronk, and that the city has been pleased with Knuth’s work.

“There were some conversations about realigning this office and we decided to go this direction,” Rivera-Vandermyde said. “It was a conversation between all of us.”

The Rockefeller Foundation prefers, Rivera-Vandermyde said, for the chief resilience officer’s work to be tied closely to the goals of the sitting mayor. Frey’s first-term priorities are affordable housing, police-community relations and inclusive economic growth.

Knuth was settling on the need to strengthen democracy by giving more people the economic security to engage in their communities, she said. “Obviously, housing came up in almost every conversation,” Knuth said. Racial disparities, police-community relations and climate change also came up, she said.

Knuth, who was appointed by Cronk, said she plans to deliver the results of her research to her successor. Rivera-Vandermyde said Knuth was slated to write a report in the first quarter of 2018, and both she and Knuth hope the next person in the position can use Knuth’s research.

“The mayor had different ideas about the vision for this role,” Knuth said, when asked why she couldn’t have pivoted to focus more directly on Frey’s priorities.

Adam Belz • 612-673-4405 Twitter: @adambelz

Adam Belz is the agriculture reporter for the Star Tribune. He previously spent one-and-a-half years reporting at Minneapolis City Hall and four years covering economics. Before that, he reported for the Des Moines Register and Cedar Rapids Gazette.